Fallout 4 Review

Fallout 4 took the gaming world by storm. Everyone went out and brought this game. It set a new record on Steam for most people playing a game by a large margin and Steam is filled with reviews on the game. What makes mine different? I played it for more then two hours before I reviewed it. I played through the game on the PC so that’s the platform I’ll be reviewing it on.

The Great:

Gameplay:

Fallout 4 finally has fun gameplay. It’s more modern then previous Fallout games. It’s not just the fact that we can now aim down the sights, because we could do that in New Vegas too, but everything just performs better. Bethesda nailed the gameplay this time around and it’s the best it’s ever been in their RPGs. It’s no longer the only downside anymore. Fallout 4 feels a lot different then previous Fallout games, but I’ll get more into that later.

Sounds:

The first thing I noticed when I booted up Fallout 4 was the soundtrack. It’s the best soundtrack I’ve heard all year so far. The main menu song is beautiful. The background music makes the fights I’m in more intense. When I’m exploring a building there’s a nice soft melody playing in the background that isn’t too loud and it’s not distracting. It adds to the experience and I love it. Bethesda hit the nail on the head here. Firing guns sound like you would expect them to sound. They’re not perfect, but I didn’t have a problem with them. When I blow something up I think it sounds great and watching as everyone around me turns into some form of goo is fun.

The voice acting is also really good which is something that surprised me because Bethesda is known for reusing voices in their games. I didn’t encounter a single npc that had an identical voice to a previous one that I encountered. Since I brought up the companions…

Companions:

These are the best companions Bethesda has ever created. Everyone has their own personalities, likes, and dislikes. Strong really likes it when I’m aggressive in dialogue options, but hates it when I pick locks or fail persuasion attempts. He also doesn’t like it when I wear my power armor. Paladin Danse on the other hand loves it when I wear power armor. Everyone is different and they even communicate with each other. There is romance in this game, but don’t go in expecting Dragon Age type romances and you’ll be fine.

Building Settlements:

One of my favorite parts of the game is building new settlements for my Minutemen and expanding our influence in the Commonwealth. I could turn an abandoned gas station into a five star restaurant. My imagination is my limit in this game. I’ve created some pretty cool settlements, but I tried my best not to spend an insane amount of time doing it because I really wanted to explore the wasteland around me.

Exploring:

Fallout 4 is a big game and it’s hand crafted very well. It’s true that it’s smaller than The Witcher 3, but does that really matter? Bethesda gave us a ton of places to explore in this game. Just about every single building around Diamond City can be explored. While I’m out walking the wasteland I would come across random events. Some times it was a woman asking for help, but instead of me helping her she led me into an ambush and I had to fight my way out. I been blown up by nukes, killed by Deathclaws, giant crabs, and I’ve ran from giant green roaches because they were creepy.

There’s always something interesting to do in this game. I never got bored a single time in over 100 hours.

Crafting:

If you thought the crafting mechanic in Skyrim was good you haven’t seen nothing yet. The crafting in Fallout 4 is ridiculously good. I found a laser pistol and decided it would serve me better as a laser sniper and turned it into one. How many games lets you do that? I turned my sniper into a fully automatic assault rifle that can mow down a group of super mutants with a single clip. The crafting system is deep and I’ve spent hours just creating the perfect weapon for myself to use. My shotgun, named Buttkisser, is a beastly weapon that can mow down any foe.

The Good:

Graphics:

Fallout 4 can look really dated at times. I’ve seen some really bad looking textures in this game, but they’re few and far between. Most of the game looks really good. If you can run this game with everything maxed then you’re in a for a treat because this game is beautiful. Bethesda still fucked up their lighting in doors, but I never expected them to fix that.

Story:

You’re a pre war survivor in Fallout 4. You were around before the bombs fell out the sky and obliterated everything. You survived because you were tricked into joining a vault and they froze you soon after you arrived with your family. When you woke up you saw your wife get murdered and your son, Shaun, get kidnapped. The main quest in this game is finding out who murdered your wife and getting your baby back.

I was pleasantly surprised by the main quest in this game. Bethesda did a really good job this time around and I was really curious about what happened to my son and who the institute was. In the end I was really happy with the main story. I never expected some things to turn out the way they did and I liked that there was a defiant way to end the game since I wasn’t buying any of the bullshit that was being told to me.

The Bad:

That Map:

The world map in Fallout 4 is bad. There’s no other way to put it. I had to download a mod that had roads and made the map easier to navigate because of how bad it is. I was hoping for a map similar to Skyrim, but I guess Bethesda didn’t do that because all of the fanboys would cry and moan about how different it is from Fallout 2… oh wait!

Bugs:

Fallout 4 is one of the more stable games I’ve played this year. I haven’t experienced any game breaking bugs, but there are still some pretty mean ones in the game. Some times when I change my weapon it’ll take a good 15-20 seconds for it to register. I would be aiming an invisible weapon around with no ammo. It got really annoying after awhile and I hope it’s fixed soon. There are some pretty bad pop ins and from what I can see it’s on every platform.

That’s about it with the bugs on my side. I know everyone’s experience will be different, but mine was near perfect.

The Atom Cats:

I’m all for joining new factions, but I question the point of the Atom Cats being in the game. They’re useless and don’t offer much of anything. They’re just there to be there and give us pointless quest to do. Out of all of the factions in the game I think this is the only one of them that I straight up didn’t like from the moment I met them and that didn’t change as I kept playing.

It’s Been Dumbed Down:

I don’t know why Bethesda keeps dumbing down there games, but this one has been dumbed down a lot when compared to Fallout 3, and New Vegas. Fallout 3 was more of an RPG/FPS while Fallout 4 is an FPS/RPG. The Karma system is gone, thankfully, and the perk tree has been revamped.

The Verdict:

Fallout 4 is game of the year material. I was completely immersed from the moment I started playing this game and only one other game did that to me this year and that was Ori and The Blind Forest. This game is fantastic and I can’t recommend it enough. The deep crafting mechanic, settlement building, and improved gameplay will keep you busy for a really long time. I can see myself playing this game for years to come and once again Bethesda has delivered.

Even though this game has been dumbed down, in a similar way that Skyrim was, that doesn’t take away the fun that I had while I played this game. I’ve already planned out my second character already. I’m going to jump right back in the game with a completely different build. Fallout 4 may lack some qualities that previous Fallout games had, but it makes up for it by having excellent gameplay, a good story, great companions, and it’s huge open world.

Share Your Thoughts!

25 Comments

An interesting way of reviewing the game Drakulus, with a point by point explanation. Have you always reviewed like that? The clarity it poses for readers is set out in its linear approach. I enjoyed reading it. 🙂

I think Fallout 4 has a ton of replayability. I’m currently on my third character and I’m loving every second of it. I like the fact that this Fallout game has modern FPS gameplay and that makes it more enjoyable then the older games in my opinion.

If you want more content it’s best to play New Vegas, or Fallout 3 until all of the expansions start coming out for Fallout 4 :].

I’m most likely going to do the same thing I did with Skyrim. I have over 1,000 hours in Skyrim and I still play it regularly. I plan on doing the same with Fallout 4 once all the expansions start to release :]

Great review, and thanks for keeping it largely spoiler-free. I’m currently at 120 hours with no end in sight. Most of that is from settlement building, granted, but I’m enjoying most of what I’ve played of the main quest line.

Completely agreed with how the game is ‘dumbed down’. It seems like there isn’t too much room to move in many quests, like you’re on a set path that you’re not allowed to deviate from. It was disappointing, but as you made clear, it wasn’t enough to blight what is clearly a fantastic game. I’ve enjoyed every second with it so far.

You don’t have to worry about spoilers in any of my reviews. All of them are spoiler free because I don’t like ruining someone’s experience of the game.

Fallout 4 is a fantastic game in my opinion. It’s been dumbed down, but not all of it is in a bad way. I prefer the new perk tree over the old one and to avoid spoiling anything for you all I’ll say is the main quest does branch and offer you different choices while you play :].

Building settlements is my new drug in gaming :]. I can’t get enough of it at moment. I did put Fallout 4 down to focus on Xenoblade Chronicles X, but I plan on jumping back in as soon as I’m done with the game.

Good to know man! I too have started to cool off Fallout 4 in favor of putting some real time into Star Wars Battlefront lately, but the game is rarely far from my mind. This and The Witcher III have defined this year in gaming for me. It’s a feat to have one game of their quality a year, let alone two. Looking forward to many more hours with Fallout 4 yet to come.

Hm… I prefer Fallout 4 to part 3 because of the gameplay, but Fallout 3 had better quest in my opinion. Nothing beats nuking Megaton :].

I never got far in New Vegas because of all of the game breaking bugs that were never fixed in the game so I can’t compare that to Fallout 4.

Fallout 3, as of right now, because of all the DLC it has is the better game, but not by much. I think once Fallout 4 ages a little it’ll be a much better game.

Fallout 1, and 2 were good games, but they’ve aged pretty badly over the years and only hardcore nostalgic fans of both them would say that they’re better then future installments when I don’t think they are.

I love the power armor in Fallout 4 and, in my opinion, the main quest is a step up from previous Fallout games. Bethesda isn’t known for their great storytelling, but what we got here wasn’t bad. I also think the companions are a major step up for a Bethesda game.

One of the criticism of fallout 4 I notice was there is no rpg you can easily be jack of all trades. But if you think about fallout 3 and new vegas you can easily max out most of your skills to 100 before you even hit level 20. What are your thoughts on this, is that a fair criticism?

My strongest character in Fallout 4 is pushing level 50 and even though I can easily kill most things it wasn’t always like that.

I don’t feel like a God in Fallout 4 at all. I’m not a jack of all trades character in Fallout. You can be one if you really work at it, but it takes time. My guy is focused on Agility, Endurance, and Intelligence. I have just enough points in Charisma to pass the dialogue options that come up from time to time.

It depends on the player. I think Fallout 4 is as much an RPG as Fallout 3, and New Vegas. It just has better gameplay and is more streamlined, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

In most RPGs that release today you can be a jack of all trades kind of character. Skyrim, The Witcher 3, and even older games like Kingdoms of Amalur, and Star Wars Knights of The Old Republic. Fallout 4 isn’t the first game to do it and it won’t be the last.

No. It wasn’t possible to max out your skills because you didn’t get a perk every level up like you do in Fallout 4. You also had more then 20 skills to choose from. The DLC took the level cap up to 30, but even then you couldn’t max out your character.

You can technically max out your character in Fallout 4, but the amount of time it would take to do that would be well over 150 hours. I completed the game, did a bunch of side quest, and explored a a lot of map and still wasn’t anywhere near maxing out my character.

There are 13 skills in fallout 3 to be precise. I was curious about this arguement of “jack of all trades” because apparently people said they were able to max out all of their skill by putting points into intelligence in fallout 3.

To be honest I don’t remember much about Fallout 3. I played years ago back when I was still a console gamer. I know for a fact that I never got all of the perks in the game though. I had to pick and choose the most useful ones to my character’s build.